Disaster management officials said Sunday that the flooding emergency in southwestern Indiana had lessened and the cleanup was under way following flooding statewide that chased thousands from their homes. Levees at Vincennes and Hazleton appeared able to safely contain rising water. The Wabash River was at 26 feet at Vincennes, 10.3 feet above flood stage, and expected to crest slightly higher during the night. "Everything is holding steady. The levees are looking really good.

The Mississippi River reached its crest at Vicksburg on Thursday without breaching its main levee or inundating the city, but academic experts say the flood has raised troubling long-term questions about how the nation's largest waterway is managed. The river crested at 14.1 feet above flood stage in the Mississippi city, moving at 13 mph, more than double its normal velocity of 5 mph, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. It was carrying 17 million gallons of water per second, enough to fill the Rose Bowl in about five seconds.

Thousands of people were evacuated and a child apparently drowned as Oregon rivers and streams gushed over their banks Wednesday in the state's worst flooding in more than 30 years. The Willamette River, the major waterway that moves up the Willamette Valley through the state's population centers, was swollen to near flood stage and was predicted to crest far above its banks by early Friday, posing a threat from Eugene to Portland.

Flood crests moved downstream across the Midwest today, allowing people to return to some of the thousands of flooded houses from Oklahoma to Illinois, but other communities were threatened as water from up to two feet of rain drained toward the Mississippi. A new levee break in Missouri threatened to flood two trailer parks, and National Guardsmen were sent to help evacuate them.

Military police officers guarded against looters in flood-ravaged southern Alabama, where the town of Elba remained a muddy hole Monday, two days after an earthen levee ruptured along the Pea River. Storm-choked rivers surged further beyond their banks in southern Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, driving families from their homes to join thousands who have fled from flooding that has led to at least 13 deaths throughout the South.

Divers searched for bodies in murky floodwaters and rescuers plucked people hanging from a tree Thursday as rain fell for the fourth straight day in southwestern Georgia. The death toll reached 18. More than 300,000 people were without safe drinking water for a second day, after floodwaters from remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto knocked out water treatment plants. Tens of thousands of acres of prime farmland were under water, while cities along the Flint River braced for a record flood.

Residents of this northwest Washington farm town frantically piled sandbags Tuesday to protect their homes and businesses from what could be record high water from the Skagit River. A day earlier, Seattle endured its rainiest day on record. The National Weather Service said rainfall at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was 5.02 inches -- well over the old mark of 3.41 inches on Nov. 20, 1959. The records date back to 1931.

Rising water inundated towns in Kentucky and turned others into islands Monday as flooding kept thousands of people out of their homes across a four-state area. Falmouth, Ky., was among the hardest hit as flooding forced thousands of people from their homes in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Nineteen deaths were blamed on tornadoes and flooding, including many who drowned or were washed from their cars--in addition to the 24 tornado deaths in Arkansas over the weekend.

Most rivers in the flood-ravaged Northeast were receding Tuesday, but rising waters in New York state hampered the search for the bodies of motorists who plunged off a highway bridge that collapsed Sunday. Officials in Augusta, Me., and nearby Gardiner and Hallowell predicted that damage in that area will exceed $30 million. Maine Gov. John R. McKernan Jr. said that estimates were still being prepared, but the total will be "tens of millions" of dollars.

Thousands of Midwestern flood victims remained homeless Tuesday and their governors pressed claims for federal aid as rivers drained toward the swollen Mississippi River. For thousands of others, the cleanup was under way. "There are about a jillion dead worms in my basement," Diane Holst, 52, of Gurnee, Ill., said as she scrubbed down her flood-damaged house. "It smells like dead carp." Dog Swims Home Holst said there was one smell she did not mind--wet dog.